Our Week in Meals #170

Good morning and happy Sunday! It was a week of rain, chocolate, and Valentine’s Day fun around here.❤️🍫💕 All of the highlights from the past few days, along with our easy dinners, are included in today’s roundup of Our Week in Meals!

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For those of you who are new to the blog, Our Week in Meals is where I share a little bit about what we’ve been up to over the past week — as it relates to our dinners each night. This series gives you a glimpse “behind the scenes” at some highlights from our life, shows you how I balance a busy schedule with feeding my family, and offers a few new ideas for your own weekly meal plan. Now let’s back up to last weekend…

I took the dog out for a short, chilly walk right after breakfast. At least the sun was shining!

On our way into Charlottesville for lunch, we stopped at the Preddy Creek Trails for a family hike. Taking advantage of a beautiful February weekend!

And once everyone was hungry, we made our way to the Wood Grill Buffet. My opinions on buffets have changed now that I’m a mom. I never much cared for them, but now I see a buffet as a great way to quickly feed my boys without any complaints! The kids love that they don’t have to wait for service, and that they can fill up on all of their favorites like fried chicken, pancakes, French toast sticks and donuts. 😂

Here’s my lineup, for those curious:

Fried chicken, roasted Brussels sprouts, broccoli cheese casserole, Southern green beans with bacon, coleslaw, salad bar with French dressing and tuna salad on top.

…and the overflow: more Brussels sprouts (call me crazy, but those are my faaaavorite!), broccoli salad, fried apples, Watergate salad, zucchini/squash, and a biscuit. Phew!

We treated ourselves to the ice cream bar for dessert, only to realize after the fact that we had totally missed the larger dessert buffet full of cakes, pies and cookies. Guess we’ll have to go back to sample those another time…

The kids spent the rest of the afternoon outside — playing in their tree fort, engaging in army battles, and crafting weapons out of sticks (arts and crafts that I’ll never understand).

For dinner that night, we decided to make steak fajitas. We rubbed steaks with fajita seasoning, which Keith grilled while I took care of the rest of the meal. I sautéed peppers and onions, cooked some rice, and heated up a can of Tex-Mex seasoned red beans.

I had mine bowl-style: lettuce and rice for the base, topped with peppers, onions, beans, steak, Pepper Jack cheese, salsa and guacamole. Plus chips and salsa on the side!

The rain arrived on Monday (and hung around for most of the week). I managed to sneak out for a quick dog walk in the morning, got my hair cut before lunch, and then returned home for the afternoon.

Teddy stayed cozy while I worked…

…and I took care of some indoor chores like laundry and Valentine’s Day gift wrapping. I couldn’t resist the most perfect donut wrapping paper (from Target)!

I made a Ham, Cheddar and Broccoli Quiche for dinner, which I paired with a simple green side salad and some fruit. We love breakfast for dinner on evenings when Keith’s not home (it’s not his favorite).😀

I took the boys to basketball practice after dinner, and then stayed up way past my bedtime finishing another really good book. The Cruelest Month is the third mystery in Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series. I can’t recommend these books enough! You’ll get so attached to each of the characters in Three Pines, and you’ll be flipping the pages to figure out how everything comes together…

Tuesday was another yucky, rainy day, so I stayed indoors and met my friend for a strength class at the gym, followed by a stop at the grocery store for a few night’s worth of dinner supplies.

Back home, I put dinner in the Crock Pot — and showed you the easy process on Instagram stories. If you enjoy more behind-the-scenes live videos of meal prep and other day-to-day stuff, you can follow me here!

Spencer requested my Pulled Barbecue Chicken, which is one of the easiest dinners imaginable…and one that all of my boys enjoy. We had the BBQ chicken sandwiches with a side of mac and cheese (from the box!), plus veggies and Ranch for dipping…and then we were out the door for a PTO meeting that evening.

My friend came over for a walk on Wednesday morning, I took care of chores and Valentine’s Day prep around the house, and even baked a batch of heart-shaped chocolate muffins for Friday morning’s breakfast.

The rest of my day included work behind the computer and errands in town — including the bank for PTO business, a drop off at Spencer’s school, and a stop at the library on Main Street.

Keith was out with friends that night, so the boys and I enjoyed a cozy Dump-and-Bake Chicken and Mushroom Casserole before leaving for basketball practice. We paired the casserole with garlic breadsticks and roasted asparagus.

On (yet another) very rainy Thursday, I headed south to Nelson County to have tea with my aunt and to visit with my uncle (who is recovering nicely from a recent surgery).

They live just down the street from my parents, so I also had lunch with Mom and Dad — pulled pork barbecue sandwiches with coleslaw and grapes, plus an unpictured black and white cookie for dessert!

Keith was working late that night and I didn’t feel like cooking too much, so I just thawed some Instant Pot Turkey Chili from the freezer, which I served with cornbread. Leftovers for the win!

We kicked off Valentine’s Day on Friday morning with a fun little breakfast: heart-shaped chocolate muffins, my mom’s chocolate chip banana bread (that she gave me the day before), heart-shaped strawberries, and berry smoothies!

The kids only had half a day of school, so it was a quick morning full of class parties, passing out Valentine grams from the PTO at Spencer’s school, and a dog walk…and then I turned right back around to pick up the boys before lunch.

I made sure to dress in my festive attire — red and white striped tunic (from Amazon Prime!), red vest, high rise skinny jeans, pink sneakers and heart earrings (from my mother-in-law).❤️💕 My boys just rolled their eyes…

We then made our way up to Culpeper, where we had a Valentine’s lunch date at Country Cookin…

Salad bar, grilled chicken, sweet potato, and pecan pie!

…followed by a shopping trip at Target to spend their Valentine’s money from their grandparents. We came home with a cart full of NERF guns, books, soccer balls and Legos — I’d say they had fun!

For a special dinner, I prepared a batch of Crab Cakes for the adults, while the kids had fish sticks. Hah! They’ll eat crab cakes, but it’s definitely not something that they appreciate for the price tag. They were just as happy with the fish sticks, and I didn’t have to splurge on 2 lbs. of jumbo lump crab meat!

On the side, I served 3-Ingredient Old Bay Roasted Potatoes,

coleslaw, dinner rolls and steamed green beans.

Saturday proved to be another jam-packed day as well.

I squeezed in a trip to the grocery store before meeting up with my parents at the boys’ basketball game for the morning.

My folks joined us for lunch afterwards, so we had a make-your-own-sandwich bar! I just set out a tray of various lunch meats, cheeses, and chicken salad from Yoder’s, along with their sandwich buns, sweet garlic dill pickles, Three Bean Salad, potato chips, fruit and leftover coleslaw from the night before.

Spencer went to a friend’s birthday party at 2:00, and then we made it home in time to give the boys baths and feed them frozen pizza, change my clothes, and head back out the door for a dinner date with Keith. Hannah, our babysitter, stayed with the kids while we went to Pinto Thai in Culpeper.

My fave — the Green Curry with Chicken served with rice and a Thai green salad with peanut sauce. Perfectly spicy, creamy, and coconut-y!

So there you go! A full week of celebrating, sweet treats, and life. I hope that you’ve found some new easy dinners to add to your own menu in the coming days. Thanks for spending your Sunday with me!!